Sorry, Jen Hatmaker: Christians Aren’t Complicit in Orlando

In the midst of grieving – and attempting to make sense of the stark reality of real evil, Christianity has been scapegoated and criticized for this ISIS-inspired mass murder.

Written by Derryck Green |
Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Hatmaker knows it and should be ashamed of not defending her fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. Yes, Christians disagree with the homosexual lifestyle. Christians also believe in praying for one’s neighbor, loving their enemies while praying for the people who curse them – many of whom are members of the LGBTQ community that Hatmaker defends at the expense of her fellow Christians. The idea that Christians can’t walk and chew gum or haven’t done so, is ridiculous.

Since ISIS-sympathizer Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured 50 more at an Orlando, Florida nightclub, many Christians have been offering their sympathy and prayers for the families who lost their loved ones during the shooting rampage early Sunday morning. Despite their good intentions, and doing the right thing – offering prayer, emotional support and comfort for those in need while mourning the dead – Christians have been forced into turning the other cheek while defending themselves as being the reason Omar Mateen targeted the LGBTQ community.

In the midst of grieving – and attempting to make sense of the stark reality of real evil, Christianity has been scapegoated and criticized for this ISIS-inspired mass murder. The argument is that since Christians, specifically evangelicals, have refused to redefine marriage to mean something it’s not, and steadfastly refuse to be coerced into participating in or providing services for ceremonies and activities that contradict their religious principles and beliefs, Christians are guilty of creating and nurturing a “climate of hate.” It’s claimed by an increasing cacophony of voices that Christian-based hatred motivated a Muslim to murder 49 people while claiming allegiance to ISIS, in the name ofAllah, absolving his culpability in a gross demonstration of what evil looks like.

So not only is transgender real, so is transtheology.

Rather than directly confronting this religious bigotry and moral absurdity by defending their religious reputation – the foundation of which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, some Christians have joined the “blame Christians” chorus.

One of those Christians is popular author and blogger Jen Hatmaker. In a post on her Facebook page that went viral, she said,

I’ve been listening to my gay friends and leaders the last two days… and this is what I am hearing: It is very difficult to accept the Christian lament for LGBTQ folks in their deaths when we’ve done such a brutal job of honoring them in their lives. Anti-LGBTQ sentiment has paved a long runway to hate crimes…. We are complicit.

“We?” A “brutal job honoring them in their lives.” “Anti-LBGTQ sentiment.”

Christians who stand against redefining marriage and the homosexualization of our culture are deliberately and dishonestly conflated with “hate,” “dishonor” and being “anti-LGBTQ,” none of which is accurate.

Everywhere one turns, one is inevitably confronted with LGBTQ propaganda, forced upon society by those who’re antagonistic toward traditional sexual and gender norms and ethics which came from the Judeo-Christian value system. These propagandists of the post-modern sexual revolution demand Captain America have a boyfriend; they send social media petitions to Disney suggesting that Elsa – a princess in the popular movie Frozen – be a lesbian; they celebrate the possibility of a transgender stingray in the upcoming movie, Finding Dora, the sequel to the hit movie, Finding Nemo; they celebrate Bruce Jenner’s “transition” and they cheer J.J. Abrams as he boasts about a gay character in the upcoming movies in the Star Wars franchise. This cultural gender-bending and homosexualization is in addition to the destruction of the institution of marriage, and absurdity that one can appropriate whatever gender one “identifies” with rather than one’s birth gender, crystallized in the disturbing bathroom edicts of the Obama administration. Not wanting to be force-fed secularized and culturally damaging sexual experimentation doesn’t qualify as a ‘brutal job’ of honoring the lives of LGBTQ. And it doesn’t implicate Christian responsibility for a murderous, radical Islamic madman either.

Further, as many examples demonstrate, most Christians aren’t anti-gay or “homophobic.”

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